Bama Track/XC coach: "It’s hard to get American kids on the phone and be a good dad"

Here’s a genius idea: talk to American recruits before 6pm.

If there's any reason why his recruiting Kenyans needs justifying or defending, that's about the lames possible defense he could come up with.

But I'm not of the opinion that it even needs defending. All the power to him.

C'mon

He should admit the real reason. His contract is not built around development. He is paid and increased based on performance. The Kenyan athletes they recruited helped Alabama win program of the year. You will not get American distance talent of that caliber to the deep south very often.

They do recruit American distance runners. But they save their scholarships for impact athletes. Not their yet on the women's side, but they have it down on the men's.

If he’d kept his mouth shut, I would have assumed that he was recruiting Kenyans because he thought that would help him build a winning team. Glad he clarified that he’s actually doing it for a stupid reason rather than a good reason. I would have taken his apparent good decision as a sign of competence if he hadn’t alerted me to the fact that it was actually the unintended consequence of half-assery.

Eh, good for him. He’s found a way to vastly outperform his peers in the SEC at XC while also keeping a favorable work-life balance. I sure can’t begrudge him that.

if you can count to 10 and spell you ABC's you can get into Alabama just saying.

they call me flopro wrote:

if you can count to 10 and spell you ABC's you can get into Alabama just saying.

So that rules you out.

all of you can make fun of Coach Waters but at least he is honest. He is trying to compete in the SEC and be good to his family, which is really important to him. All to often family life gets crushed in trying to be a coach/recruiter/administrator 24/7. Yes, its part of the job but Dan is really trying to be a good husband and father, and for that I respect him.

As a coach, if this is an honest answer, then I totally respect him for that.

LoneStarXC wrote:

Here’s a genius idea: talk to American recruits before 6pm.

Should be talk to them while they're in school, or should be interrupt their practice and his?

Another collegiate coach wrote:

all of you can make fun of Coach Waters but at least he is honest. He is trying to compete in the SEC and be good to his family, which is really important to him. All to often family life gets crushed in trying to be a coach/recruiter/administrator 24/7. Yes, its part of the job but Dan is really trying to be a good husband and father, and for that I respect him.

So when he decided to be a college coach, and father children he never realized that he would have to work during the day (gasp!) yes, the same hours that his children are away?

He totally full of $hit. He recruits Kenyans because they are fast, there is no age verification so those guys can easily be 23-28 and nobody will know the difference, and they are disposable. If they complain, they aren't going back to some cush home in the suburbs, or transferring to another school... they're getting shipped back to a 3rd world country.

Waters is a piece of $hit.

I think he's telling the truth since calling people on the phone is really the only way to communicate with people these days. Sometimes if my sister is on the one phone we have in the hallway, I can't make a call, or receive any calls from my friends for hours. Any calling the house just gets a busy signal.

CrimsonLied wrote:

I think he's telling the truth since calling people on the phone is really the only way to communicate with people these days. Sometimes if my sister is on the one phone we have in the hallway, I can't make a call, or receive any calls from my friends for hours. Any calling the house just gets a busy signal.

This.

So he’s busy being a dad, yet he’s set aside 2 hours a day for international recruiting. And it just happens to be the 4:30-6:30am CST slot, when American kids are either asleep, running, or in class, but it’s lunch hour in Kenya. And the rest of the day he’s too busy to crack open his email or text app.

What a crock.

That darn Cindy or Jan.

Why can't he just email them?

CrimsonLied wrote:

I think he's telling the truth since calling people on the phone is really the only way to communicate with people these days. Sometimes if my sister is on the one phone we have in the hallway, I can't make a call, or receive any calls from my friends for hours. Any calling the house just gets a busy signal.

^^^^^^^^POD!!

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Every scholarship given to a Kenyan is a scholarship taken away from an American. You know, like someone that grew up here. Someone who possibly could have improved and been an Olympian for us.

Shameful that a state-supported school gives scholarships to people who never knew Alabama existed.

His first mistake is thinking he can successfully recruit American teenagers by talking to them on the phone.

Theriot wrote:

His first mistake is thinking he can successfully recruit American teenagers by talking to them on the phone.

Well, not at 4:30 a.m.

On a tangent, if a female coach pulled a “I just can’t put in an all out recruiting effort AND be a good mommy to my kids,” she’d never live it down. I mean, seriously?